Hooray for Depth! | a DC United Match Reaction

Guess what? We're deeper than the Red Bulls! Shocker, I know. Well, considering that I "followed" this game through a combination of Ives' commentary, the MLSNet.com match tracker, and the Goff + United twitter feeds, I'm not going to go into too much depth with the talking points. I just wanted to point out that...

* I nailed the starting lineup again. Okay, so I had Kocic instead of Wicks, but I got all of the other starters right. True, a few were in different positions than I anticipated, but I'll take my minor victory, pair it with the Chivas preview victory, and look for the trifecta this weekend. Sorry about the self-pimping. On with the game...

* Gomez responds. I called out Gomez in the preview, saying he needed to prove that he could still pull the reins of the offense. Now, that was a pretty laughable Bulls' defense, but two assists in one half of play say that the old man can still answer the bell. Our other Sudamericano in the lineup, Fred, also seemed to be putting in a quality shift. In other good attacking news...

* Khumalo the dangerman. Pretty much everything I was looking at said that Khumalo was hurting the Metrobulls all night long with his speed and movement. Considering Boyzzz hasn't had many minutes, that's good to hear. Depth and variety in attack are always a plus. Emilio the poacher, Moreno the smooth operator, Quaranta with vision and energy, Boyzzz buzzing at pace, Pontius in the right place at the right time, and N'Silu with size and strength. Now those are options!

* Going for broke. How long has it been since we were offsides eight times? I was wondering what team this was when the match tracker kept popping up with "DC - offisides" time and again in the early going. Grabbing three goals before the Bulls even managed a shot speaks to our aggression and domination of possession.

* The defense is still struggling. Yet despite all of this offensive glory, when Fred and Gomez left, the possession seemed to dry up. Then the defense came under fire and we still managed to ship three goals. Now maybe that's just a bit of "rout complacency fever" slipping in, but Soehn needs to address this, even if we were playing a bunch of second-teamers.

* Is Peters as good as gone? I didn't see anything on the injury front, yet he wasn't on the bench for this match. DiRaimondo got minutes, but not Peters. Perhaps they've figured out that he's just not up to snuff? Assuming we have some cap space, that's a senior roster spot we could be filling with someone useful. Given the depth in attack and on the wings, and given that we'd be dropping a keeper to bring another in anyway to address our biggest weakness, I'm thinking we could use cover for the "ironmen" Namoff and Simms. McTavish can cover one but not the other. I wouldn't mind a nasty, hard-tackling d-mid to provide options in the middle of the park...

Well, that's about all that I could glean from my various sources, so I'm looking forward to hearing from those who were actually there. What did you you take away from this match? Personally, I'm glad we're moving on, not because it further congests the schedule, but because we have some quality depth that needs to be getting some minutes that matter. Oh, and it didn't hurt that it was the Metrobulls that were on the other end of this particular beating.

2 comments:

I often wonder if the FO made the move to bring in Peters at the expense of Vide based on an assumption that we would be playing 442 with a rhombus midfield, like we were in the early pre-season, and thus needed depth at center back.

Given the switch to 352 with Jakovic/Janicki in the middle, I don't see where Peters fits into the picture, particularly since he has limited pro experience, doesn't seem to be suited to playing wide in defense, and is occupying a senior roster spot.

While Vide wasn't the highest quality player, he brought tackling, energy, and reasonable experience in a relatively cheap, journeyman package.